Monday, 1 August 2011

Raising Sarah Palin's ignorance ceiling

[If raising Sarah Palin's ignorance ceiling had to be voted by Congress each time she opens her mouth, they wouldn't find time for anything else!]

Republican presidents had the debt ceiling raised several times, including her hero, Ronald Reagan...

Bush

During Bush Presidency, current GOP leaders voted to increase debt limit by $4 trillion, without tying it to spending cuts.

... in May of 2003, the GOP was not only willing to raise the debt ceiling in the absence of debt reduction measures, but it did so on the same evening that it blew a brand new hole in the federal budget by approving a giant tax cut for the wealthy:

Without comment or ceremony, President Bush on Tuesday signed a bill allowing a record $984 billion increase in the amount the federal government can borrow, to a record $7.4 trillion. The increased federal borrowing will enable the government to pay for the $350 billion economic stimulus package that the GOP-led Congress passed last week at Mr. Bush’s behest.

That “stimulus package” was the 2003 Bush tax cut.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, the Bush tax cuts will add $3.4 trillion in deficits by 2019, as well as an additional $1.7 trillion in interest on the federal debt.

Reagan

There were 18 increases in the debt limit when Ronald Reagan was president. The icon of tax-cut Republicans, Reagan argued the case for debt ceiling increases in terms cited by the Obama administration throughout the 2011 dispute.

"The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate," he said in a 1983 letter urging the Senate to get the limit increased.

Seeking another increase in the fall of 1987, Reagan honed in on the habits of Congress.

"Unfortunately, Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility," Reagan said. "This brinksmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest markets would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, the federal deficit would soar."

With Sarah Palin's Tea Party thrown into the mix, brinkmanship has moved to a whole new level. As a consequence, the global markets are being hit and the effects of the idiocy of the teabaggers felt beyond US borders. There's something very wrong with this picture.

Perhaps instead of offering compromises, President Obama should use the 14th amendment, raise the debt ceiling and tell the teabaggers where to shove their brinkmanship once and for all.

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